Experiences of going to university and….surviving!

Italian

This week I thought I would share my spaghetti bolognese! Its really quick unless you are a slow cook like me…..and, for the first time I used quorn mince! Thought I would give the vegetarian version a go, mainly because I saved £2 by just buying the veggie option! :O (a whole £2! That’s so much!!!!).

Anyway, more about all that after;

Ingredients:

– 500 g bag of frozen quorn mince

– As much spaghetti as you usually like

– 2 cartons of passata

– 1 onion

– Olive oil

– 3 carrots

– Bacon (I used 12 rashers, but it depends how much bacon you want in it)

– Garlic Ciabatta

– 200 mL beef stock

– Cheese

– 2 cloves of garlic

Step 1: Chop the garlic, carrots and the onion. Cut the bacon, I remove all of the fat of the bacon so I probably lose about a quarter of what I could put in, I also used 12 rashers because I was making this in bulk!

Step 2: After chopping the vegetables, place the frozen quorn mince into a large saucepan with some olive oil, you do not need to defrost it, you cannot really overcook it and it takes about 12 minutes from frozen to cook. Whilst this is being done, fry the bacon until cooked. Once done add the onion and fry this for a further 5 minutes until the onion is soft and brown, you can then add the carrots after on their own to soften them up slightly or, like me, you can add the quorn mince, carrot and garlic all in one go to the bacon and onion.

Step 3: After a further 5 minutes or so, *add the stock and passata to the mix and mix all together, bring to the boil and allow to simmer for as long as you would want (max 2 hours) all you are doing here is heating everything up, but I tend to let it simmer for about an hour.

*Note – before adding the stock and passata you can add some white wine and allow this to boil off before adding the stock, its not completely necessary.

Step 4: About 10 minutes or so before you have finished step 3, cook your spaghetti and your garlic ciabatta (190 °C for 12 minutes approx), and once all done serve and top with cheese if you like! With this there was also a lot of the bolognese left over, so I put that in a container for freezing, probably enough for 4 more portions, I didnt have portion sized containers so I will either be having big portions or when defrosted half will be stored in the fridge for the next day, when cooking this once defrosted you should add a small amount of beef stock (or just normal water) just to stop it all burning and cook it for about 10 minutes then its ready to go!

My first year at Uni I would always be making this, I never used quorn mince before but I feel like its such a better alternative, for the same amount as lean beef mince (for the fridge) you save £2, you therefore have no rush to use it. Also, this seems to absorb the flavour a lot better than lean beef. In terms of ‘does it taste different?’, not at all! Maybe if it was on its own but in something like this you don’t taste the mince, its just the tenderness that’s different. Whilst I am personally not a vegetarian I will most certainly be using this to what I previously have been doing.

This all cost under £10 with a few bits leftover for other dishes and with more portions for the freezer so this is definitely worth it if you are on a budget yet want something different.

This week we made lasagne. It was actually my first time making this, I tend to just go for a simple pasta bake however I thought I would try something new.

Okay, the ingredients;

– 1000 g lean beef mince

– 200 mL hot beef stock

– about 3 tablespoons olive oil

– a block of cheese

– lasagne sheets (standard box of about 500 g will be more than plenty for this)

For the tomato sauce;

– 2 onions

– 2 garlic cloves

– 2 tbsp tomato purée

– 200 mL white wine (I use blossom hill a small bottle (187 mL) they only cost about £2)

– 1200 g tinned chopped tomatoes (3 x 400 g tins)

For the white sauce we used Dolmio cheesy white sauce simply to save time, and we have never made white sauce before, plus this was cheaper…they had an offer on! 😀

LET’S GET TO IT!!!

Step 1: Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan and add the chopped onion and garlic. Cook until brown and soft. Then add the tomato paste, cook for a little longer whilst stirring continuously. Add the wine like you are a true italian! I believe it is italian to add wine to dishes like this, I hope that is not offensive….It is also tradition for the french to drink wine whilst cooking! That I can say because I am half french…but I diagress. So the wine is added, you need to bring to the boil and allow it to reduce, it takes about 5 minutes. After this add the tinned tomato and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.

Step 2: During this time you need to a) prepare the beef stock, and b) brown the mince meat for about 10 minutes. This is where timing comes in! When all of that is done, combine the tomato sauce, the beef stock and the mince meat together. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

Step 3: Preheat oven to gas mark 4 (approx 180 degrees centigrade), oil a dish then in this order add layers of meat, lasagne sheets, white sauce, and repeat 2 more times so you have 3 layers of each and the top is topped with white sauce. After this you can add your cheese to the top. We opted for normal cheddar cheese, but you usually use mozzarella strands. We also decided to use the entire block because we are cheese lovers and cheese is the best invention. After this place in the oven for 45 minutes until lightly browned.

After this has cooked you have an amazing lasagne which I thoroughly enjoyed eating, it was delicious and there were leftovers with 4 of us eating it! Easily 6 portions there, so they could be frozen for later and cooked from frozen by just doubling the cooking time above. It’s very likely I will be doing another italian dish….I just love italian food! This was all purchased from morrisons for just a little over £15, with some things left over and just from this to get 6 decent portions I would definitely say it’s is good value for money!